


Nebulas

by Strange and Intoxicating -rsa- (strangeandintoxicating)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: First Kiss, Kissing, M/M, Slight Season 7 spoilers, Soft and sweet Sheith, Why not sell the scraps of my heart to another fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-02
Updated: 2018-08-02
Packaged: 2019-06-20 16:51:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15538704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strangeandintoxicating/pseuds/Strange%20and%20Intoxicating%20-rsa-
Summary: There was a dream Shiro had when he was younger: open expanses of space so dark it seemed to swallow the light, tendrils of reds and blues and purples cascading from the skies, the explosions of long-dead stars and the births of newly-formed nebulas that lived and died and lived again. There was the constant darkness, yes, but always filled by the light, yearning to break free.A brief, but honest, conversation between Keith and Shiro.





	Nebulas

**Author's Note:**

> I kind of don't really belong in this fandom, but... when inspiration calls, I guess the only thing I can do is write.

There was a dream Shiro had when he was younger: open expanses of space so dark it seemed to swallow the light, tendrils of reds and blues and purples cascading from the skies, the explosions of long-dead stars and the births of newly-formed nebulas that lived and died and lived again. There was the constant darkness, yes, but always filled by the light, yearning to break free.

It was what brought him to the roof of the Garrison, staring up at the skies that were once so familiar and yet, now… it was as though the constellations themselves had moved, somehow.

Or maybe it was _he_ who moved?

“Shiro, what’re you doing up here?”

“Just… looking,” Shiro admitted, not daring to look away from the sky, lest his face said more than he wanted it to. “It’s… It’s been a while.”

Keith didn’t reply for a moment, but Shiro could feel the warmth radiating from him as he sat down at his side, leaning back next to the older man. “Just looking? It’s kinda chilly.”

Shiro turned his head to Keith, noting the old, dusty red jacket. “I thought you lost that thing,” he admitted.

Keith managed a half-shrug from his position, letting his elbow knock against Shiro’s. “Got a bunch at—uh. At home.”

Home. Shiro could remember the small house in the middle of the empty desert, the only thing other than the Garrison and the caves that they had found the Blue Lion in that he remembered. “Did you live there… after?”

“You mean after I got kicked out?”

Shiro heard Keith’s head clunk into the metal below them. He could see the way his friend frowned, at how deeply the words still seemed to sting Keith.

“I guess.” Shiro looked away. “It wasn’t your fault, you know.”

“You don’t even know why I got kicked out.”

Shiro paused. He had gotten caught up with what had gone on during that year of captivity, but Keith had a right to tell his side. He deserved as much. “Do you…”

“Wanna talk about it?” Keith let out a long breath, one that rattled at Shiro’s core. “Yeah, I kinda figured you’d ask that eventually.”

“We’ve never really talked about, you know. This. Coming back. Being…”

“Yeah. I…” Keith paused, and Shiro found himself clinging to every soft rustle of his thin red jacket, the one that had grown a little too short for Keith’s arms. He was no longer the lanky sixteen-year-old boy Shiro left when he went on the Kerberos mission, and then the eighteen-year-old that he had watched become a paladin.

No. He was now a man… and Shiro could admit to himself, in the silence and comfort that only the stars could give him, that he wished he had gotten to spend those two years with Keith. He would have loved to have watched Keith become the man that Shiro always knew he would become.

But…

Shiro reached over to touch the stump of his arm, feeling utterly naked and open. He could feel the scar tissue, fissures that had healed over time but never quite faded. They were his open wounds, no matter how much time passed or how healed it may have been. His body may not be the original, but the skin still _ached_ the same way it had before.

They still stung at night, and Shiro wondered whether it would always feel that way. Was it his trade-off, for no longer having the illness corroding his bones, sapping away his energy and his life? Was he now to stay paralyzed by this new pain, by this inconsolable loneliness?

His skin yearned for the touch of another, for someone who he trusted with everything in him—with everything he had been and everything he would become.

“Shiro… you okay?”

Shiro wanted to tell Keith the truth, that he wasn’t sure that he would ever be okay, but he _wanted_ to be okay. He wanted to heal. He wanted to do a lot of things, some of which were fairy tales of times that never really would exist again. So many dreams, so many desires, so many plans that he wanted to complete and things he wanted to see.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Shiro asked, though he hoped that Keith wouldn’t answer.

Keith’s sigh was answer enough.

“I talked to Commander Iverson.”

Keith sighed again. “What did he tell you?”

Shiro turned on his side, letting his left arm brush against Keith’s. “He told me how you got expelled, for starters.”

It sounded like Keith was about to sigh, but it got caught in his throat. After a moment, he finally responded with a simple, “He deserved it, you know.”

Shiro could see the strain around Keith’s mouth; he was too young to already be getting frown lines. Then again, he was too young to have a full head of silver hair, but…

“You got expelled because you—”

“Punched out the Commander. Screwed up his eye. Yeah, yeah. I know. I was _there_.” It wasn’t hostility; it was _defeat_.

“Keith…”

But Keith pulled his arm away, leaving a cold sting of the air in its place. Keith started to sit up for a moment, but he gave up and flopped backway. “Look, Shiro,” Keith began, “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“I don’t want you to say anything.”

“Then wh—”

“There’s nothing you _need_ to say, Keith. I understand.”

But that answer didn’t give Keith what he must have wanted to hear, because Keith crossed his hands over his chest for a moment, paused, and then laid them back down next to him. “Just… What I wanted to say is… I regret it enough without you being disappointed in me, too.”

“I’m not disappointed in you, Keith. I couldn’t be disappointed in you even if I tried.”

It seemed that Keith wasn’t listening, no matter what Shiro said. It was that dull look in his eyes, the way that he appeared to be trying his best to pull himself together, as though showing any kind of weakness would be unacceptable. Most of the time, in the few weeks they had spent back on Earth, Keith looked better. He looked _stronger_ , as though the time he had spent with his mother had healed up his own little fissures.

There were so many words that they both wanted to say—more words than there were stars shining in the sky, no doubt. Their fears, their dreams, their hopes, their desires.

Could Shiro ever really put it into words? Was it even possible for him to think it, let alone say it out loud, for Keith to hear?

“I’m disappointed in me.”

“Don’t be. You were—”

“I thought you were dead and listening to Iverson talk about you like you had done something wrong—I just couldn’t take it. I was… dumb. I know that, now.”

“I get it, Keith. Really. You don’t need to explain this to me.”

That answer wasn’t what Keith must have wanted to hear, because he finally turned on his side, nearly nose-to-nose with Shiro. “I _do_. I _do_ need to explain this to you, because… I need you to understand. I need _me_ to understand.”

Shiro could barely breathe; Keith was so close that, in the dim lights from the high, electric gates around the Garrison, Shiro could see the constellations from all those nights in space glistening in Keith’s gray-blue eyes.

“Okay, Keith. I’m… I’m listening.”

“You know I’m in love with you, right?” There was a perfunctoriness to his voice, almost so causal and aloof that for a moment Shiro’s brain couldn’t quite comprehend the letters becoming consonants and vowels, then syllables, then words, then a full sentence. “Have been since… forever, really.”

“I—”

“Thought of me as that stray you picked up. I remember what Adam used to say.” Shiro expected more bitterness, but it wasn’t there. “Called me your shadow, remember?”

“Adam—”

Keith’s face was so close that Shiro could almost count his eyelashes.

 ** _Almost_**.

“I hated him for a while. He gave up on you. He left you. He _hurt_ you,” Keith stopped himself, and for a moment it seemed as though he had somehow gotten closer to Shiro. Their noses were ghosting against one another, now. “But he was right. I was your shadow.”

“Keith—”

Shiro wasn’t sure what he should have expected, but it wasn’t for Keith to roll on top of him, to press their chests together. It was as if Keith stole the words from his lips, the breath from his lungs, the thoughts from his head.

“I’m not your shadow anymore,” Keith murmured as he leaned down. The way the lights from the Garrison hit Keith’s cheek made it seem like there were stars on his skin, galaxies clustered in his hair.

Keith reached down, running his hand through Shiro’s hair, tucking silver tufts behind his ear. “You know that, right?”

“To which question?” But words felt scratchy in his throat, and it was hard to move, hard to breathe, hard to _think_.

“I don’t know. The first. The second? Both, I guess.” Keith licked his lips, though it seemed more from nervousness than from sheer, unbridled sexuality. Still, even then, it was all but impossible for Shiro to not look at the way Keith’s throat moved, the way a slight stubble was beginning to make its way across his jaw.

He was always handsome, sure. It was something Shiro always knew but hadn’t put a lot of thought into. Keith was so much younger than he was, and anyway, they just needed to be family. Yet, in the time Keith had spent with his mother, over those two years that passed in almost the blink of an eye, he had become…

“You’re beautiful,” Shiro admitted, and though he wasn’t sure they were the words he _should_ have said, they were the words that  _n_ _eeded_ to be said. “You always were.”

“I have a feeling you’re not talking just about my mug.”

“No.” Shiro was thankful that Keith had rested his hands on the sides of Shiro’s head instead of on his shoulders. If he had done otherwise, it would have been almost impossible for Shiro to reach up with his left hand, running his finger against the scar across Keith’s cheek.

Keith didn’t flinch away from his touch.

“I did that to you.”

“No. You didn’t. This body may have, but I know you, Shiro. You’d never hurt me.”

But… wouldn’t he? That was what he had been doing for years, over and over again? That was all him, all his doing. Every time he broke Keith, Keith built himself back up into something stronger, just like nebulas hiding stellar nurseries under its colorful tendrils. They cradled the future stars, just waiting for time to take it to the next frontier.

“I—”

“Just kiss me, Shiro.”

“Keith.”

“Don’t…” Keith’s voice dropped low as he leaned closer, his bangs rubbing just against Shiro’s temple. “Takashi. Kiss me.”

It wasn’t demanding in the way a child sounded when he wanted something. It wasn’t an unruly teenager with a penchant for skirting, if not outright shattering, the rules.

It was imploring, urging forward. It was Keith, the man he had grown to be.

It was always Keith. It was always meant to be Keith.

Shiro leaned forward, just enough to let their lips brush against one another. When Keith deepened the kiss, Shiro followed the stars.

They had their open expanses, their darkness, their light. 

And, as Shiro felt Keith's hands running through his hair, pressing their bodies flush against one another, Shiro really understood what was missing. All of those years searching the stars and the constellations and the galaxies... he had been waiting for the answer that was always right in front of him, but always just out of distance. It didn't have to be that way anymore. 

Keith was the nebula cradling him, urging him to grow. And, Shiro knew, he was the same for Keith, too.

"Come home with me?"

"Of course. And..." Shiro pressed another soft kiss against Keith's skin, not minding the cold or the thin jacket. He could warm Keith up himself.

"Yeah?" There was breathlessness in Keith's voice, a haziness that was unlikely to dissipate. 

Shiro kissed him this time.

They were living and dying and living again.

And again.

And again.

"I love you too."

_**And again.** _

**Author's Note:**

> I dunno if I'll be participating much in this fandom, but this ship is definitely my jam. I'm busy writing original fiction and other fan fic, but if you want you can find me as rsasai on tumblr.


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